Dealership culture starts with the people leading from the front. During today’s CBT Live segment, Fred Lennartz and Lou Ramirez of Car Guy Coffee and Certified Solutionaries discussed how energy, accountability, and disciplined processes can shape dealership performance.
The duo said leaders set the tone inside a dealership, and the energy they bring to work influences how employees approach customers and their own responsibilities. Lennartz and Ramirez launched the Car Guy Coffee podcast in 2019 after about 20 years of working together in retail, on and off, and they built it as a source of encouragement for an industry in transition. They said the goal goes beyond motivating people, because they want employees to understand that how they show up each day affects everyone around them.
Both men served in the military, and they said that background shapes how they train dealership teams, particularly around structure and process. Lennartz said the military taught him to follow a standard operating process without skipping steps, a philosophy he applies to the automotive road to the sale because shortcuts eventually hurt the result. Today, the pair coaches dealership teams the way they want to be coached.
Leadership development has become another major focus of their work. The partners said dealership managers often need encouragement and guidance in skills they never learned as salespeople, rather than more technical education, and that strong leaders care about their people, know who they are and who they are not, and unlock those strengths in others. The partners also described their new Minorities in Automotive initiative, known as MIA, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that aims to bring recognition, benevolence, advancement and community to industry professionals who may not know where to turn. They said MIA does not seek to compete with groups such as the National Association of Minority Automobile Dealers (NAMAD); instead, it connects minority professionals with those organizations and welcomes employees from every department, including the cleanup bay.
